Drone crashes: what’s going wrong?
22 June 2016
Reports have emerged showing that a record number of US Air Force drones crashed in major accidents last year. The most accident-prone appears to be the Reaper UAV, which has become the military’s weapon of choice for conducting surveillance and airstrike missions against IS and other militant group. Claire Apthorp reports on what’s driving this increase in mishaps and how potential problems with the technology can be ironed out as the demand for drones grows.
Reaper
In many ways unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are a military platform the world loves to hate. Outside of defence circles, even in mainstream media, drones are often considered to be the first step toward a future where warfare is carried out by robots devoid of human input.
As a result, any crash or incident involving a UAS is always tasty fodder for the media, both because these incidents imply that the technology is unsafe, and because of the shroud of secrecy that can surround such events. Often the first news of a crash in a foreign theatre comes via local reports that filter through to the newswire, and on which officials usually refuse to comment as a matter of course.
A crash may be related to pilot error, technology failure or enemy strike, but official findings are rarely released to the public, for the same reason defence departments do not release information on where, why and how their other intelligence assets are operating in support of military operations. As a result it is impossible to know the extent to which technology failures, human factors or enemy action are to blame.
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